No.26 Participation in the Tomon Festival Event

(Inagi Newsletter December 15, 2013 issue)

Recently, I received an invitation to participate in the Waseda University Alumni Festival and attended. This event is aimed at Waseda graduates but is open to the public, and various events are held every year.
This year, starting in early spring, Mr. T, a classmate who graduated from the architecture department in 1985, has been preparing to hold a symposium themed "Seismic Resistance of Non-Structural Components" amid a series of unexpected damages and accidents due to major earthquakes and aging infrastructure. When I was first approached, I hesitated, thinking that such a specialized topic was beyond my expertise. However, the university headquarters expressed that if the discussion only involved difficult topics from experts, it would not attract visitors, and the project seemed likely to be scrapped. I was persuaded by the invitation that it would be sufficient for me to provide comments from a layperson's perspective, and reluctantly agreed. During the planning stage, it was decided that the symposium was too grand, and it would be more like a roundtable discussion, with the title set as 'Unexpected but Safe: A Grand Roundtable on Everyone's Safe Space.'
On the day, Mr. K, a graduate of the Department of Architecture and a professor at the University of Tokyo, gave a keynote speech on the dangers of suspended ceilings, followed by presentations from other members, and then a roundtable discussion involving attendees. Mr. K, who completed his master's program at the Graduate School of Science and Engineering and works at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, raised the point that there are limits to ensuring safety from the perspective of legal regulations. Mr. K, a graduate of the Department of Civil Engineering and a professor at Ibaraki University, discussed the impact of unexpected discrepancies among stakeholders in large-scale projects, while Mr. A, a graduate of the Department of Architecture and a professor at Waseda University, spoke about safe spaces from the perspective of urban planning and Community Development.
I presented on the current status and challenges of seismic retrofitting in Public Facilities. In Inagi City, efforts for the seismic retrofitting of "structures" have been underway since early on, and by the fiscal year before the major earthquake, most reinforcement work was completed. The future challenge is the seismic retrofitting of "non-structural components." Measures to prevent the falling of some ceilings and lighting fixtures located at high places are necessary, and a comprehensive inspection will be conducted by this fiscal year, with plans to implement fall prevention measures over the next three years until fiscal year 2015.
This time, I unexpectedly reunited with my classmates and was able to meet new people. It has been almost 30 years since we graduated from university, and everyone has become an expert in their respective fields. I hope to utilize these connections for future Community Development.